More Grey Hair Cometh

Anyone who knows our kids will confirm that if the blame is to rest unequally, it’ll be the youngest that will ultimately responsible for most of our grey hair. It wasn’t her fault this time, it was just one of those things. On Sunday evening we were gathered with family, visiting upstairs while our two girls played downstairs. Suddenly the laughter-noises that wafted up from the basement to contribute to the general background noise was replaced with a bloodcurtling scream and much crying out from our youngest daughter, and the near-immediate thump-thump-thump of our eldest hoofing it upstairs as fast as she could to call ‘mommy,’ who was already headed for the stairs.

Turns out our 4-1/2-year-old was running past a coffee table on which was perched, near the edge, a pair of sewing shears. Very sharp scissors. The two or three nicks in her ankles weren’t that bad, but the 6″ gash in her left leg was quite another. “Not good,” my wife said, returning for reinforcements, followd by “Oh, yeah” when I asked if stitches were going to be needed. Now, I married into a family of nurses, so my wife and the sister whose home we were in proceded to assess the situation and close up the wound with band-aids while ‘grandpa’ and I distracted her with a stuffed toy and various words. The wife and her sister headed off to the emergency room to see about having it fixed up while I hung back with our older daughter — the sister’s presence was strategic, as up until a few months ago, she worked in the ER at the nearest hospital.

They were back in 20 minutes or less. Turns out the wait to see a doctor was going to be something in the 2-hour range, so the sister who had worked there had managed to score the necessary supplies to do the patch-up themselves, and they returned to complete the task on her couch. Hmmm. Okay, sub-ideal, but it could be worse…. and I’m not going to get started on a healthcare rant. The scissors were very sharp, so the cut didn’t bleed all that much, and it turns out the deepest part of it was only about 1-1/2″ long. They removed the temporary bandages, cleaned it, and applied the proper ones along with that medical type of “glue” that they often use instead of stitches now. The whole thing was covered over with a large bandage and then wrapped in gauze around her leg so that it looks a bit bad except for the “Dora the Explorer” sticker applied overtop of everything. By the time we were headed home, the Tylenol was kicking in and she was her happy self again and walking on it when we got home.

She starts kindergarten this fall. The summer before our oldest daughter started kindergarten, she broke her right arm. Sigh. Tense moments. During the bandaging procedure, our little one was adamant that the scissors she was seeing cut the bandages not be allowed to touch her skin… and by adamant I mean “slightly freaked.” She’s generally the fearless one, but still may not be able to go near a pair of scissors for a while. We’ll get her in to see her doctor within the next day or two.